


give sorrow words

by rjosettes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Arranged Marriage, F/F, F/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 06:19:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4614453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hale queens have always sat on their throne with a singular independence. Cora's father had been a scholar like Derek, hungry for history to help them navigate their future. Laura had wed Jordan, who was gentle and kind and had no head for ruling whatsoever, his single point of strength his love for her and the fierceness with which he'd defend it. For two years, Cora had been the same; she sat alone on her throne and gave her decrees, consulting her council only in private and standing solitary at the head of their queendom. A king at her side had never done a drop of good for a Hale queen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	give sorrow words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rvst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvst/gifts).



> 'Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o'er-wrought heart and bids it break.' ~ William Shakespeare
> 
> Written for the prompts 'I will be screaming' and 'That lady, that amazing lady, was weeping', with a dash of royal AU, fantasy AU, and arranged marriage. The time period here is very intentionally vague, since this is not so much a historical AU as it is an alternative history.
> 
> Many thanks to my beta (and cheerleader!) [Kat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama).

When the queen's council began to seek out a suitable wife for their ruler, sending word to the countryside as well as the neighboring kingdoms, few of the nobles or even the commoners were surprised. Prince Derek and his lady wife (though few considered the former queen's guard and current advisor a true lady) were expecting not one but two possible heirs long before the throne had warmed under his sister's rule. With no obligation to bear children and carry on the line, the wisest choice was to seek a spouse for her majesty that spoke of power, something inherent and untouchable. 

The royal lines never mixed with magical blood (or so it was written, though many questioned it), but every king or queen had their philosopher, their magician, their strange and beautiful consort. Someone by their side with that other-worldly gift that came in so many forms. The queen's call for a woman of magic – rather than a man – was an easy one to answer. Hedge witches and minor sorceresses liberally dotted the lands of their kingdoms and those neighboring it. Families wrote in about their maiden daughters – those who could speak to the animals in their own tongues, those who whispered prophecies in their dreams or called the rain down when the land was dry. Queen Cora, though, was not easily pleased. She sought someone more rare to mark her reign and sit at her side.

Deep within the hills of the far side of the queendom, beyond the great trees, a young woman woke up screaming.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“A banshee,” Derek says, eyes never leaving the dusty scroll he's studying, “would be most useful to us in times of war or plague. She's likely to be bored here as things are.”

“I could start a war, if you'd like.” Braeden, heavy with child, is as sharp as ever. Cora regrets having to retire her when she did. Not even Ser Kira charges into battle with such ferocity, despite her warrior spirit and flaming sword. The rise of those with magic among the military ranks since Braeden's departure has been encouraging, at least; her mother had proposed it long ago and lost her life over much pettier concerns before she could carry through. “You're being ridiculous,” she adds, reclining on the high-set bed they've made for her. She'd been too proud at first to sleep in it, but eventually a spill that had knocked the breath out of her as she rose in the morning convinced her. “People die every day, Derek. And there's no call treating the girl like nothing more than a tool. She's to be your sister's wife.”

Derek's eyebrows arch. “And what of my sister's lover?”

Cora has to calmly remind herself that a queen does not blush, even if she is presumed to be a maiden. “Ser Allison eagerly awaits her queen's wedding,” she replies evenly, back straight. Laura had been so unyielding despite her softness, and Cora finds it impossible to imitate without hardening herself. “In fact, she is to escort the lady-”

Her brother scoffs, princely disdain that he's yet to grow out of. It's nigh impossible to imagine what Derek would have done with himself had he not been high-born. He thinks too highly of himself to take a trade, for which he'd have to apprentice, and he is by far the least suited for war of their family. “She is no lady. Banshee or not, the girl could not be further removed from the nobility. And asking after her in her own village even once is enough to tell you she has made a wife of herself to every young man in walking distance. She's no sweet, fresh maiden.”

“Nor am I, brother,” Cora reminds him gravely. There is nothing queenly about the heat of her stare, the one she wishes were cold instead. It's as effective as can be hoped for, though, as he doesn't stop to object that she has not lain with a man. She will never lie with a man. If those are the standards she is judged by, she will die a maiden and yet still leave a widow behind. “Lest you forget, slandering the wife of your queen is something I could have your head for. Speak what you must now, but mind what you say after our crown graces her head.”

The silence is long and fraught with tension. Derek doesn't want to submit himself to her will. It is no secret he misses Laura far more than he will ever admit beyond the quiet night hours with his wife. Finally, he lets his chin fall to his chest and returns to his task.

“So,” Braeden says from across the room, feeding ripe fruit into her waiting mouth. “I've heard she has crimson hair.”

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Whoever Braeden's informants are, they are mistaken. Without leaving her lookout as she waits in the castle, as propriety calls for, Cora can see that the banshee's hair is not crimson at all. Her hair, windswept from the last stretch of her journey, is shockingly bright against her drab traveling clothes. The color is intimately familiar; it was Cora who boiled carrots into soup for Laura and Jordan in lieu of a chemist or witch, eager for them to conceive. She thought she had grown tired of the color. Perhaps not.

A hand rests on her shoulder and Cora stiffens at the touch – her brother is at his books as always and Allison is in sight, gently lifting the lady Lydia down to set foot on castle grounds for the first time. She turns to find only Erica, peering over her shoulder. “Are you sure you've taken the hand of a banshee and not a vampire?” she asks, wildly inappropriate, but her face shining with good humor. “She looks to be not very fond of the daylight on her skin.” Not to mention the not-quite-red of her hair. Her eyes are yet to tell the tale of whether she bears the full marks of a witch. It would not be a shock to find them grass-green and youthful.

“She is fair,” Cora defends needlessly. Erica is jesting, always jesting. Had Laura been queen still when Erica came to court, they would have been great friends. “Nor would it be your business if she were not.” She watches until the last second, when her bride-to-be is led out of sight, and frets with nerves. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Anything, your highness,” she responds wryly. “It will be no favor at all, but my duty.” Cora swallows her laughter, restraining herself to the shadow of a smile. She is glad above all things that she has a lady in waiting not frightened of her and the power that she holds. There are few women of the court that she finds herself comfortable with, always preferring the company of the knights of her guard, but Erica can be a delightful relief. 

The downside, of course, is that she will likely be mercilessly teased for her request. “Lady Lydia lacks a handmaid. I...” She grapples with the feelings behind this urge, unsure how to word them. “I would not like to see her in the hands of anyone I do not trust, and she cannot be presented to me until she is bathed and dressed.” Trust is not so much the problem, if she were honest, but honesty is not a duty among royalty. “If you would be so kind-”

“Of course,” Erica says brusquely. “No one else shall lay hands on that which is promised to my queen.” As always, straight to the heart of what Cora really means.

They trade words about what shall be done with her hair (pulled away from her face) and what she will wear (anything she pleases of what's been made ahead of time for her arrival). Cora has never been drawn to a woman in finery, though she herself is stuck in it daily. Ser Allison's breeches and tunics suit her knight's body well, all lean muscle that speaks of strength and speed; her gloves are her only luxury, protecting the soft skin of her clever hands from cut and callus both. Erica reminds her that in a wife, what lies beneath the garment is far more important, and Cora cuts her eyes at her in feigned disapproval.

“Remember me!” she cries over her shoulder as she goes to her task. “And know if they find me pale and cold, it was not a physic's bloodletting that made me such!” Cora shakes her head at the teasing. There are no vampires in their part of the country, even in the far reaches; one would have to travel farther than the hills to find a creature so unseemly. Lydia is a harbinger of death in another way – not the cause, but the warning. If there is anything this castle needs, it's a little foreknowledge of loss.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“The Queen's Guard presents Lady Lydia of the hills.” 

Cora's breath is caught in her throat like a wondering child even on her regal throne. The woman – for she can no longer call her a girl – kneeling before her is every bit the otherworldly goddess she sought to take her side, to inspire fear and faith. Erica's deft fingers have made a swift but intricate braid of her orange hair, wreathing – or, she supposes, crowning – her head. The rest of her hair tumbles freely, loose waves that look soft to touch. Against the rich green of the dress she's chosen, it seems even brighter.

Allison grips the woman's small hand and helps her rise to her feet under the gaze of the court. Her eyes, though, stay cast to the floor. Likely something she's been told to do before, though not by anyone from Cora's end of things. She'd much rather be looked in the eye honestly than be shied away from in some feigned reverence. 

“I hope our castle isn't too bleak for you, my lady,” she says, trying to be friendly and welcoming, “after so many years in the green country. I promise you our forests and fortresses can be as pleasant as your hills and valleys.” Cora saw the furthest reaches of her mother's rule when she was only a child, before the coup that left her short three family members. She and Derek were frightened by the great trees, giant groves of them spreading out from the nemeton. Beyond them, though, the hills had been beautiful, vibrant colors and so many wide open spaces. Derek had never been so tan.

Lydia's response is so blandly appropriate that Cora will have forgotten it in five minutes. There's a sense of quiet approval in the room – the commoner girl may not be an embarrassment. Cora's spirits fall. She'd gone out of her way to find someone unexceptional to sit by her side. A joke, a smile, even a look...and instead she's left with nothing but pleasantries and respect. Her contact with Lydia between now and the wedding will be minimal at best. Instead of the not-awful fluttering in her stomach she'd had this morning from her hiding spot, she feels the heavy weight of the fear of disappointment.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cora arches under Allison's hands, as much afire as the candles casting a dim glow across the body above her. There's something almost inappropriate about sharing a bed on this night, but her knight has been absent from her side for weeks and Cora will not be shamed. She has more concern for the sweat-damp shoulder giving under her teeth than for propriety. Her heart is at a gallop with long, skilled fingers curling inside her; she smothers her own sounds into Allison's skin so she can hear those that their bodies make. Cora's thighs are wet inside and out, her own arousal spreading as she's wound higher and tighter toward a snapping point and Allison's smeared against her as she rocks there, eager and impatient. They're both panting, a poor excuse for the noises she wants to drink from her lover's mouth but can't.

Cora tries to fall asleep after Allison blows the candle out. She knows that Allison will be gone when she wakes, though – set about her duties and avoiding Erica's lascivious looks that would otherwise accompany their mornings after. Her head is heavy with concern.

“She didn't want to come here.” There's no point in turning it into a question. “Is it the castle, our policies, was she with someone? We could have made arrange-”

Allison gently rests a finger over her lips mid-word and Cora stills and waits, quieting. “She loved her home. I slept there only two nights and I could see how much she meant to them, and all of them to her. Not to mention...”

“She served a unique function,” Cora guesses. Of course. If it's a gain for her to set a banshee at her court, it can be nothing but a loss for Lydia's home. “Have we fairly compensated them?”

Cora's skin crawls with Allison's eyes on her, even in the dark. There are times she doesn't see the heart of what she's said until Allison's silence lays it bare. 

“I don't think this is something you can throw gold at and hope for the best. She's not just an asset to them.”

It wouldn't be enough to simply say that she isn't _only_ that to Cora, either. Allison knows full well that Derek doesn't think this is a wise move. That Cora is just as insecure that the problem is herself as much as anything else. “What is she like?”

A hand creeps across her waist, slipping in still-fresh sweat, as Allison pulls her in closer. “Sharp.”

“Her wit? Her eyes? Don't tell me she has fangs. Erica will never let me rest.”

Laughter sets the both of them quaking. “Her wit and her eyes both. Usually the two work together. She had Ser Isaac sorted within a few minutes of meeting him. I wouldn't be surprised if she has us just as figured out.”

“You are not a secret,” Cora says firmly, despite the fact that in nearly all cases it's no more than a pretty lie. “I will not hide you from her. I may grow to love her; it would be for the best. But it was not my intention to marry for love.”

Sleep is finally shrouding her when Allison responds, and she catches only bits of the mumbled answer. Something about the convenience of her asking specifically for someone she at least could fall in love with. There will be time another day to argue the scarcity of men with magic since the wholesale slaughter of them in fear that a queen of the Hale line would breed with them. For now, she settles into troubled sleep, vowing to make the most of the fortnight before the wedding.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dinners are, in all honesty, useless for getting to know someone. Even when Cora requests a more private setting, she's surrounded by her brother and his wife, by Erica and her ever-present 'guest' Boyd, and even a few members of the court that are most easily offended by being excluded. It's the best that Cora can do without excluding everyone, though – including Lydia. They won't be left alone together before the wedding.

There are other options available to them, at least. Thanks to the turned heads and the rumors that never rise above above a whisper, Ser Allison – an exemplary knight, honorable protector of the queen – is considered an acceptable sort of chaperone for a soon to be wed pair. There are gardens and fountains and towers with views that Cora wants to show to Lydia, places in the castle that she might not learn for months on her own. The realization that this isn't going to be easy is sinking in fast and hard now, and the road to making things as pleasant as possible isn't clear. They can try, though.

The first place Cora tries is her favorite of the gardens -stone and greenery interwoven, benches where Cora used to bother Derek as he tried to read in peace beneath the biggest tree. The roses her father had kept for her mother are still tended here, deep, lush red blooms. Not now, but later, the queen may send someone after a few to be stripped of their thorns and sent to her bride. Surely a woman of the countryside can appreciate flowers. 

Lydia is quiet on the walk there, but Cora is hopeful and Allison encouraging as they finally step through the archway into the muted sunlight. For a moment, something changes in her face – her plush mouth shows the hint of a smile when she sees the creeping ivy of the walls and the lush beds of flowers opposite the roses. She seems drawn to them, slipping away from Allison's side and spreading her skirts so she can crouch low, fingers close, almost touching – and then she gasps, stumbling back so fast she almost falls.

“My lady,” Allison says, as Cora watches from a distance, unable to gentle or steady her with a touch in the same way – yet. “Are you hurt? I sent someone ahead to check for serpents, I hadn't -”

The woman flinches under their concern, her shoulder twisting away from the hand resting against it. She straightens and holds her head high, chin up. It should be proud, almost regal (which she soon will be), but Cora thinks she only looks frightened, and a little sad. “I don't like the way they smell,” she says, wrinkling her nose as if she can still catch their scent from several feet away. “I'd rather have seen your library.”

Allison laughs at her when she frets that Lydia might in fact be falling for Derek. Kindly pointing out how she'd turned her nose up at the obscure alchemy texts and detailed histories that Cora's brother had piled high for the new queen consort. She'd gravitated instead toward books of numbers and measures – even those that described nothing more than details of harvests past – and a few of the philosophers that were read any longer. Cora had no interest in such things, and Derek had moved so far beyond the basics that he rarely revisited them, unless to compare to some new information or make a notation in his own writing. The books had been Derek's peace offering, because he's not dull enough to think that being hostile will win him points with anyone. Derek was just as snubbed as his choice in reading material had been, though, which Allison is emphatic about, easing Cora's nerves.

They go on more walks around the castle, but Lydia never loses the pinched look on her face she'd first shown there in the garden. That flicker of a smile doesn't show itself again, though Erica assures them she does, in fact, laugh – that her feet are tender and ticklish. 

For a brief moment, Cora thinks that the tower is the place that she's been looking for – a place where they can both feel comfortable. From its height, on a clear night or a cool day, she can see out to the great trees, the nemeton dwarfing them all against the horizon. With her palms against the cool stone, Lydia closes her eyes and inhales the evening air, loose hair blowing in the soft breath of the breeze. She looks ethereal – more a part of the moon's glow and the night itself than of their world. When she looks out again, though, it slips away. Her shoulders sink and her mouth pulls down, her green eyes dim and cast to the stone beneath her feet. 

“She's sad,” Allison offers that night – the night before Cora's wedding day. “She's homesick. That doesn't go away overnight. She'll find her place here. She and Erica seem to get along just fine. There will be more friends for her. And there will be you, now.” She kisses the back of Cora's hand, a brush of lips that still makes her heart quiver. “I certainly hope someone is changing your bedclothes before you bring your wife to sleep here beside you.”

She means it as a joke but everything feels like a fault in the moment, like she's made a terrible choice. There would have been so many women closer to home with just as much magic, if not quite as rare. So many families who'd have clamored to come to court _with_ their daughters, eager to join the nobility and a life above the one they'd carried on before. Lydia's family and friends are content in the hills and from everything they've seen, so was Lydia. Cora's stolen that. She's stolen her life, her home. Stolen a smile she never even got to see.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lydia's smile is blinding on their wedding day. Cora can't count on two hands the number of gasps she witnessed upon seeing her in her wedding clothes – a more vibrant, springlike green, the color of young love. Cora feels silly in her own blue dress, a sign of a purity she doesn't feel and knows that many people will mock, her brother included. Lydia's voice sounds crisp and clear, light as birdsong, lilting over their vows. Her voice carries the unmistakeable evidence of her otherness, the accent of the most common of people, but no one laughs when she agrees so sweetly with every word that binds her to her queen.

When the circlet is placed on her wife's head, shining, twined with ivy but fragrant with rosemary, Cora swears she can feel a change in the air. Something happening just out of sight, something she would need another kind of eyes altogether to see. They kiss cheeks, Lydia's plump lips and fair but rosy skin a welcome distraction, and for the briefest moment their mouths touch. There's no warmth behind it, no joy, but when Cora pulls away, she still sees the image of the radiant bride in her marital bliss. Her stomach feels sick. The guests see everything they could wish for at a happy wedding, but the first smiles of this marriage are hollow.

They stay as late as they can without raising eyebrows at the feast, Cora quaffing ale as quickly and as often as she can without making herself ill. Something must keep her warm in the chill she knows to expect in her marriage bed. It will make her toss in her sleep, she knows, but she will take it above the sober ache of a knowledge she can't face quite yet.

No one lingers to affirm that the marriage is consummated. Neither of them are equipped to sire children, unlike some queens of past lines. Cora undresses herself for the first time since she became queen, accustomed to Erica's practiced hands or Allison's daring ones, revealing her skin like a conquest. She waits in her cold bed, only feeling a tiny bit like the room is spinning around her.

She falls asleep before Lydia even makes it to their chambers.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lydia rarely sleeps in their bed after. Cora had woken up to her wife peaceful in sleep in nothing but a dressing gown the morning after their wedding, her head pounding, and promptly escaped. She'd dressed herself as presentably as she could without someone to help, long before Erica woke, and took off for the more obscure wings of the castle to be left alone. When she'd returned at mid-day to be dressed for her actual responsibilities, Lydia had been gone who knows where – the library, likely, poring over tome after tome with a determination that Derek often commented on when he had occasion to run into her. 

Of course, there's a room that belongs to Lydia alone, and she picks her own lady in waiting after the wedding to relieve Erica of double duty. Tracy is the only one, now – aside from Lydia herself – to dress and undress her, to run her fingers through that wild hair. Cora gets a lump in her throat that she can't swallow around when she remembers the way it had spilled across the bed, gently waving after being released from the braid she'd worn all day. The pair of them spend more time together than Cora has ever spent with Erica, even after they'd started to become friends. Cora's not sure whether to be glad that she's bonding with someone in the castle or terrified that it isn't her, or even someone close to her. She's never shared more than two words with Tracy.

More and more often the pair of them disappear, though never leaving the castle, as Ser Isaac would have likely reported – and definitely gossiped about – the queen consort slipping out of the castle not properly accompanied. Cora tries to busy herself with the daily business of tending to her land and her people, the one thing about this that has never rested heavy on her shoulders. Being pleasant, looking presentable, the fear she'd originally felt knowing she'd have to marry, and relatively fast – they'd all been enough to keep her perpetually anxious, especially in the aftermath of losing her sister. Jordan, too, had been a loss. She had never met someone so kind who could actually manage not to bore her. Lately, though, she's been less able to focus, quicker to lose her temper. Despite the fact that her day to day life hasn't changed for the most part, this marriage is making her tense.

The only real solace offered to her is Allison's – rational enough, but above all romantic and optimistic. Losing her place as chaperone means she sees Lydia even less often than Cora does, but she seems convinced still that Lydia is only adjusting. It feels empty after days and weeks pass. It can't fill the hole in Cora's chest that's digging itself deeper every time she sees her face at the table, paler each day, picking at her food like a very particular child. There is more than just homesickness or even dislike for her wife eating away at Lydia.

Her fears are all confirmed when Tracy rushes to her chambers on a pitch black night, the moon hidden from view. The girl halts and stutters when Allison, hastily wrapped in a dressing gown, answers to her cries rather than Cora. When her tongue unsticks from the roof of her mouth, she helps the pair of them dress enough for the chilly night air and any sleepless peeping Toms in the castle. They leave her at the bottom of the stairs, Allison taking her by the shoulders to thank her sincerely as Cora dashed up on her own.

Lydia's nearly naked, bare knees against the cold stone of the tower. Her hair is in tangles as if she's been tearing at it, or tossing in bed. It hides her face entirely, not a peek of her expression to be caught. Cora doesn't need to see her face to know what's happening here. Her shoulders shake, a thin, high sound escaping into the night air – not strong like a banshee's scream.

That lady, that amazing lady, was weeping.

The force of the hand that shoves Cora away shocks her, leaving her breathless and with a stinging pain in her tailbone. Allison moves to come to her first as she reaches the top of the stairs but Cora waves any help away. She's fine. Lydia is not.

She yelps when Allison touches her, flinching and then settling when an extra layer of cloth is draped over her, protecting her from the elements. Allison has suffered worse weather with fewer comforts; sacrificing her own warmth to spare Lydia is a reflex so strong that she doesn't even seem to think about it. Chivalry at its purest, Cora decides – though born to be a lady at court, Allison has always been a knight at heart. 

Lydia draws the garment around her tightly, rearranging herself until she sits cross-legged, her face still hidden from view. Cora can hear the hiccups and gasps that come now and feels them in her own throat, tight with emotion. She remembers this part. Trying to be brave, to stop yourself crying out for help. Trying to have the strength to grieve only on the inside. She'd been too small to put up so much of a fight when her mother died, pounding at Derek's chest with her fists for days when she felt like pulling herself apart. Laura had been harder.

“Lady,” Allison says, firm and even. “Perhaps we should find for you a chemist, or a doctor of physic, to-”

“No leech will lay his hands on me,” Lydia spits, her head whipping around, eyes trained on Cora. “I am not taken with melancholy. I will not be poked and prodded and dosed with potions and made to sleep in the temple.” She quivers with a sudden rage – no, not sudden after all. The sort of fury that rises up when one swallows their sadness for too long. “I will not have hymns plucked and sang to me as if the sound will reach my ears and drown out what I will hear for the rest of my life.”

Cora, not one inch moved from the spot where she'd fallen, listens to the vast silence around them – no wind to whip or hooting of owls. No feast or festival with ringing exclamations of joy or overindulgence. The night is void, a quiet so loud that Cora's ears ring with it. “What is it you hear?” she asks, grasping at the furthest reaches of her senses, but they are only human after all. “When will it stop? When will you be able to live with this, like you did in the hills?” She knows for a fact that Lydia had not been a wan, listless woman in her home, can picture her: hair wreathed with flowers and summer clothes light, catching the eyes of the young and old alike. Her laugh, which Cora has never heard, sweet as church bells to those worthy enough to hear. Marrying, though, has somehow made her a perpetual widow. Even now she is dressed in white beneath the red of Allison's gown, as if she is mourning.

Her eyes are pale green as they have always been, wet with tears she doesn't blink away, but there is something behind them now. More than sadness, more than fury. She doesn't take to her feet, but the presence of her rises all the same, as if she were looming above them and looking down. “When will I be able to live?” she asks, voice breathy and almost amused. “When death dies. Until then, I will be screaming.”

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Lydia shuts herself away again, it's Tracy they must go to for answers. Tracy, who has spent her time as a lady's maid finding obscure corners of the castle that carry little sound. Lydia's village had been small, and the deaths there had been few – the old, the very young, those that died in childbirth or caught a chill that never left their bones. Lydia, Tracy tells them, had sat with them all through their passing. Young and old, she had held hands and kissed foreheads and wept, for she knew before even them when their time had come. 

Here, in the bustling castle and its surroundings, people are dying every day. The unnatural deaths of the past haunt these halls with whispering voices. The purple flowers, those beautiful monkshood blooms, had been used to poison Queen Talia. Beyond their walls, people fight and die, sometimes starve. Lydia can hear them slipping away, can _feel_ their souls being dragged from their bodies and across the divide. But here she is shut inside and kept secret and safe, unable to comfort herself with the knowledge of the comfort she can provide. Lydia is not lonesome or homesick. Lydia is, quite literally, continually grieving.

The idea doesn't take long to form in Cora's head. If seeing to the sickly and dying had made Lydia what she was before, then it must be restored to her. The question is not so much whether she ought to be allowed but how. There has been no reason (at least not one that was apparent) for Lydia to leave the castle since very shortly after the wedding, when a planned procession had seemed like just the thing to lift spirits outside their fortress walls. Guards are a necessity, especially with the history those of the Hale line seem to have with their subjects, and even their family. She doubts greatly that Derek would ever lay a hand on her or her consort, but he and Cora are not, after all, the only Hale blood left alive. 

In the end, Allison volunteers. Times are as peaceful as they have been since before the tumult of Queen Talia's murder. Ser Kira can handle training as easily as Allison has, and Allison is, after all, the queen's guard. Just because Lydia is not queen regent does not mean she is not a queen. She is accustomed to keeping all hours from both her job and her involvement with Cora, so acting as an all-hours escort to Lydia is no hardship. Cora breathes a sigh of relief at the idea. Allison she can trust with her own life; Lydia's will be safe with her as well.

It takes a while for Lydia to warm up to the offer. She's gotten accustomed to screaming her lungs out in the dungeons and most remote wings of the castle. She appears, dressed and ready, just after supper one night. She sits on the edge of the bed that should be hers while she waits for Allison to be prepared to ride.

“I don't know where most of the people here live,” Allison says honestly. “We might be able to ask around, but-”

“I'll know,” Lydia says, confident. It isn't the broad, empty smile of their wedding that she shows to them. Small and a little sad, but sure – like something is quieting inside her. Cora doesn't ask to come with them; that would require more protection than Allison alone can provide. She tries to absorb herself in her papers that evening instead, working into the darkest part of the night and fearing the morning might come before she could feel any rest. 

It's Allison that returns to her chambers, alone, bleary-eyed but not unhappy. She herds Cora into the bed, barely bothering to strip herself of enough of her riding clothes to sleep comfortably. Curling herself around Cora, she's halfway to dreaming as soon as her head hits the bed. 

Once every few days, Lydia comes calling. She doesn't knock before she comes into the room at night anymore, and she finds them elsewhere around the castle as well, seeming to know exactly where to find them. The color is slowly returning to her cheeks, and she eats more heartily at meals, arguing with Derek in between mouthfuls. Braeden is absolutely delighted by her, her habit of breaking Derek's vague, philosophical arguments down and makes him speak in a way that everyone understands. She smiles sometimes, when she knows she's winning, proud and bright-eyed. 

Allison isn't very forthcoming about their outings together at first - sometimes coming back weepy, always exhausted, even when the trip is short. Over time she lets bits and pieces slip. Lydia isn't kind, exactly, she says. She doesn't offer poetic words or cry, like she had that night on the tower. It's subtler than that, more solemn. She holds their hands or looks into their eyes. She knows, Allison tells her, the exact moment when it happens, even when Allison herself might not notice a difference in the old or frail. 

“A mother died,” Allison says late one night. “She held the baby. I thought she was just taking her to give to her father before... She likes to be alone with them sometimes. Before we leave.”

“But that wasn't it.”

Allison shakes her head and curls closer, still freezing from the long trip back to the castle. “She kissed the baby's forehead. Touched her lips to it and...whispered something, I think. It might've been magic.” Magic doesn't run in Allison's blood; her father and his father before him had fought hard against the inclusion of those with magic in the guard and the army, even in the court. She seems shaken, though, and Cora can't imagine what else could make her so deeply affected. “I think she knows more about life than you'd expect, for an omen of death.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The fear that Lydia might be slipping into something more than familiarity with Derek or Tracy had been an itch in the back of Cora's mind, annoying but ignorable. The realization that she's steadily growing closer to Allison, though, is not the same at all. Part of her still frets, knowing this is for the best but still holding a spark of optimism that things won't always be so distant between the two of them. Derek had never been any sort of threat, with his nose in his books and his eyes only for Braeden; Tracy loves Lydia but seems almost frightened of her. 

Allison seats herself at Lydia's side more often than not, a gap between herself and Cora that unsettles, nags. They take trips from time to time, now – clothes and food for a few days, heading out to visit the sick but not dying together, offering counsel and accepting gifts in return. The people under Cora's rule are beginning to cherish their queen consort, willing to accept the strange turns of phrase and unmistakeable mark of the Other in her appearance if it brings them a glimmer of hope. Instead of returning exhausted, Allison comes to bed smiling and tactile, kissing Cora's throat until she concedes, nightclothes shed. Some nights she doesn't creep into Cora's chambers at all, presumably sleeping in her own bed. She wonders if Allison sleeps alone on those nights.

The only thing to be done, Cora decides one morning after watching Allison dress before Erica rises, hurrying to take breakfast with Lydia, is make a greater effort. She speaks more frequently at the table, breaking the near-silence she's usually kept at meals. Teasing Derek is second nature, even if she's always kept it to their private moments, and even some of the members of the court dare to speak to her as she eats. When she and Lydia see subjects together, Cora joins their hands together – a visual symbol of union and solidarity for the people, she explains. If it helps her feel closer to her wife, well. That is only a small side effect that need not be mentioned, isn't it?

In no need of chaperone, Cora asks Lydia to walk with her from time to time, to show her the places in the castle where she would hide when the screams were rising in her throat. Cora knows some of them – games of hide and seek seeming ancient in her mind, memories of running from the truth much more recent. They talk more and, significantly, get more personal all the while. Lydia knows little of the details of what happened to Cora's mother and sister, though she feels their death's presence here with every step and every whisper. Cora learns more about Lydia's way of life at home and tries to make things more comfortable here. The vision of Lydia's face lighting up when her favorite stew is brought in from the kitchens is enough to sustain Cora for days, a tiny smile creeping onto her face when she's alone and can no longer maintain the severe queen's expression she so often wears. 

Only after the purple flowers have been removed and yellow ones planted in their place does Cora take her wife back to the garden. Lydia seems reticent at first, and her steps wary but not unwilling. When she sees the blooms bright as sunshine in the place of the murder weapon she'd despised, her shoulders relax, and she sits down on the bench that had always been Cora's when she was young, as if sensing it.

Cora is carefully checking over her mother's blood-red roses, the silence between them comfortable at last, when Lydia finally speaks up.

“There is a question. And I'd think it foolish to ask it of anyone else.” It's exceedingly formal for Lydia, and Cora tenses, her back still turned. “I've noticed that no one talks about the time you spend with Allison, so I doubt they would answer why you didn't simply marry her instead.”

Cora, eyebrows raised, turns to face the question head on. “Ser Allison cannot be both a queen and a warrior,” she answers carefully. “It's been done before, and it has never ended well. At best, the people would frown upon it. At worst, she would become twice the target she is now. I will not paint targets on the backs of the few loved ones I have left.”

“But you do love her. The heart of her, not just to lie with her.” 

“I was not looking for a mistress. I wasn't even looking for a friend when I gained a new guard and they sat me on the throne. I was seventeen and bitter, unmarried though it would've been wiser to send me away. Derek used to say I was a fine wife in theory, but that no one would have me if they were allowed to spend one day by my side. “ It's not something she can argue against or deny. Derek denying the throne, Laura and Jordan dead by the hand of a man she'd thought only to trust and never to suspect. “I couldn't bear to be around anyone, but it was unsafe to be alone. So Allison was my constant and only companion, when I was not about royal business.”

Lydia's features soften, and she looks far younger than she has since she arrived – a girl again, and not carrying the weight of life and death. “You would have had no choice but to love her,” she says, and it feels like a confession. 

Cora doesn't despair as she'd have expected. If this is how it will be, so be it. Allison is touched by something not wholly human or magic, something almost divine – or at least that is how it always seemed to Cora, and now to the both of them. There is no guilt in loving her. She takes a seat next to Lydia, presses the single red rose she'd plucked into her hand. “No choice at all,” she agrees. “Nor did you.” She uses her fingers to curl Lydia's around the flower and hopes it feels like a gift. Like her blessing. There is room enough for both of them in Allison's heart.

Lydia studies their touching hands and the petals crushed between them, and all that Cora can think is that the rose is dying, now. She wonders if Lydia feels that too, a sorrow welling up in her chest at the idea. This woman, of all people, knows the fragility of living things as well as Cora. Allison has taken lives by bow, by sword, by the force of her hands. Cora has watched as her family tree is sheared of its branches, never singly but always in a devastating blow that leaves them lonely, growing spare and barren toward the sky. And Lydia – Lydia has felt it all. They can understand each other, and she can think of nothing that could make this work better than that fact.   
She's about to say so when Lydia's grasp goes slack, flower dropping into her lap, sparing it further bruising. She grips Cora's hand tighter, and within a blink she tastes those lips for a second time, her kiss honey-sweet and enveloping. “Nor did I,” she says, and her laugh falls into Cora's mouth rather than on her ears, nothing more than a breath. “Nor did I.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Hale queens have always sat on their throne with a singular independence. Cora's father had been a scholar like Derek, hungry for history to help them navigate their future. Laura had wed Jordan, who was gentle and kind and had no head for ruling whatsoever, his single point of strength his love for her and the fierceness with which he'd defend it. For two years, Cora had been the same; she sat alone on her throne and gave her decrees, consulting her council only in private and standing solitary at the head of their queendom. A king at her side had never done a drop of good for a Hale queen.

Now, the people – nobles and commoners alike, close to home or from distant lands – kneel before their two queens, hands twined together like weaving branches. They have made themselves stronger, becoming one. Lydia is a fast learner to the utmost (it was only a year after their wedding that anyone discovered she had scarcely been able to read when she arrived; her days of making a hermit of herself in the library had not been in vain) and when the formalities fail her, Cora can fill in the blanks. She can yield when Cora's stubbornness is at its height and calm the storm that comes with being wrong. 

As for their knight, her room is mysteriously vacant and Erica, not one to pass up an opportunity, finds herself with a much nicer bed far closer to the ladies she waits on. If Tracy's room is equally empty before long, no one is alarmed enough to make note of it. Never aloud, at least, and certainly not at the supper table where Derek's books are closed, his babbling daughter bounced on his knee as he shovels down food, eager to get back to her. The room feels warm with the chatter between Lydia and Braeden, Tracy's growing confidence, and Allison's thigh pressed to Cora's beneath the table. 

Lydia doesn't shriek into the night anymore, not even in her sleep. She wakes with wet eyes at times, blanketed by bodies, and sniffles until Allison or Cora wakes. “I missed one,” she often says, biting her lip in regret, her eyes seeming to glow as she feels someone slip away. It will never become a pure gift, the things that she knows, but it is no longer so much of a burden.


End file.
